Theres a meme floating around: My wall is not a democracy, its a monarchy, and I am the queen. ie. if you dont like what I post, go away. On the one hand, I recognize that theres a certain validity to this. I want to hang out with friends. Who doesnt? But that also translates out to, I want to hang out with people who agree with me, who think like I do. The result is a kind of clustering. It reduces opportunities to be exposed to new information. The same thing is happening in our news media. We can select right wing outlets or progressive media or just those that try to position themselves in the middle and hope were getting accurate news -- but actually, were tailoring our inputs to those that validate our beliefs. The result is a kind of cultural fracturing. As much as we used to talk about the great melting pot -- a metaphor which has now evolved to become the great tossed salad -- what were really getting is a compartmentalized TV dinner, with all the different bits on the same tray but none of them touching each other. Clustering has its advantages for science fiction fans and LGBT people and nerds of all kinds. But clustering also allows hate-groups and political and religious fanatics to thrive as well. We are entering a new age of social interaction.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 18:45:38 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015